The Ramblings and Works of an Elderly Young Man

So, I have been playing around with some amazing software from East/West via Composer Cloud. It is rather fantastic, and I have barely scratched the surface. I wanted to share the few short items I’ve managed to put together so far.

So this one was one that I experimented with today. It was just a matter of learning how to set up the software to receive the different MIDI channels so I could push notes in a specific way into the software. I could have a few items loaded in the VST, such as an expressive violin note and a legato violin note. I assign them to channels 1 & 2 respectively, and then the player handles ensuring it is handled properly depending on what notes come in via what channel.

This one was one of my bigger attempts to get that classical movie score sound into a little soundclip. Lots of different instruments being used here, like tubas, oboes and snares with timpani drums. The feel for this was envisioning a spaghetti western intro, where the cowboy is riding up towards the camera in a rather desolate background. When the music opens up, I thought of the camera panning with the cowboy in sight riding into a beautiful mountain pass or bustling city.

I loaded up a sound library for a Steinway grand piano in a hall, and just played around with chords. I am not a proficient piano player, but I also wanted to use this as an opportunity to learn a few chords and just enjoy that sound library.

This was the result of me first playing around with a single sound library, changing up the velocity and learning how note placement can change how it can sound rather artificial into something a little bit more natural sounding. Small progress between the first one and this one, but progress nonetheless!